CAMPUS LIFE: U. of Texas at Dallas; Something Brand New On Campus: Freshmen

The University of Texas at Dallas began the 1990-91 school year on Thursday with a major addition to its campus - freshmen.

Now this 20-year-old commuter institution for upper-level and graduate students has a more authentic college flavor, with teen-agers starting off to class, filling the Student Union building and adding daytime activity to a predominantly evening university where the average age of students has been 30.

Under a new curriculum designed earlier this year, the 111 freshmen, most of them 18 years old, will receive a grounding in liberal arts while concentrating on the primary emphases of the university - research, math, science and engineering.

''The concept here is not another University of Texas at Austin or Texas A&M, but rather a Texas-style Massachusetts Institute of Technology,'' Peter O'Donnell, one of the leaders of the program, has said.

Before classes began last week, the newcomers completed a two-day orientation program. They toured the campus, 18 miles north of downtown Dallas, learned about university life and were divided into five groups for extensive discussions with faculty members and administrators. They ended with a Texas-style barbecue at the home of the university's president, Robert Rutford.

''I'm really excited about being a part of the first class,'' Leila Grio, a computer science major from Dallas, said. ''I will be a part of everything they do here to set examples for later classes.''

Michael Anshelevich, a math major who recently emigrated from the Soviet Union, said, ''I think U.T.-Dallas is the best place in Dallas and maybe in Texas for me. It is a good place for mathematics study, and I think I will enjoy it and have a good experience.''

The decision to add freshmen and sophomores to the 8,300-student institution came from a coalition of political and civic leaders working with the Texas Legislature.

Thinking that a four-year school was necessary to compete with the nation's leading colleges in math, science and engineering, the Legislature approved the expansion in July 1989. But the university was forbidden from spending money on recruiting until the Texas Education Coordinating Board approved the program in February.

Christopher A. Parr, the dean of undergraduate studies, then sent 12 representatives to 128 schools in all neighboring Texas counties to find candidates for the first freshman class.

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''The law was very specific in its limits,'' Mr. Parr said last week. ''Until the expansion was approved, we were prohibited from devoting any resources to recruitment. Since the final approval came very late in the recruiting process, we had to get off the starting block in record time.''

Despite the late start, the freshmen include four valedictorians, four salutatorians and a National Merit finalist. These first-year students have average combined scores of 1125 on the Scholastics Aptitude Tests (out of a possible 1,600 combined score) and have grade-point averages in the top 10 percent of their graduating classes.

'More Noise and Energy'

David Schulz, the university's director of news and information, said the university hopes to expand next year's freshman class to 200 and ''ultimately to about a thousand.''

To accommodate the incoming freshmen, school officials have added six faculty members to maintain the student-faculty ratio at 19 to 1. They also added 20,000 volumes to the library and modified existing laboratory space.

The university is in the middle of a $3 million fund-raising drive to pay for the first two years of the freshman class. Texas Instruments is leading the drive by accepting donations from private businesses, with more than $1.7 million already raised and spent by the university.

But the benefits are worth the price, many upperclassmen say. ''I know that they are going to bring that youthful feeling to the campus, and they will bring a bit more noise and energy as well,'' said Pamela Slayton, a senior public-administration major from Dallas.

Kelly Ward, a junior economics major from Dallas, said, ''A lot of times it's kind of dead on campus, but now it's a bit more rowdy and crazy with the freshmen around. We usually have a big crowd during the evening, and now this will add to the day atmosphere.''

President Rutford added: ''This is a rare event in the U.S. to have an institution started by granting Ph.D.'s and sort of downwardly integrate. There are not many places that have ever done that.''

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A version of this article appears in print on September 2, 1990, on Page 1001047 of the National edition with the headline: CAMPUS LIFE: U. of Texas at Dallas; Something Brand New On Campus: Freshmen. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe